Tomb Raider: Revelations
by TJJW
Summary: Fate has never been kind to Lara Croft. From her mother's dissappearance in Tibet, to the massacre at Paraiso, her life has been fraught with tragedy. Yet she always persevered. In this tale, she may just encounter the worst fate has to offer. Please R
1. 1'1

**AN: **I'm back! I started writing this after finishing "Tomb Raider: Genesis" which means that it was before Tomb Raider Underworld. Any similarities with that game are accidental, because this story is based on my canon featured in TR: G. This story is a bit more violent, and has a few harsher words than my previous work, just letting you all know. If anyone would like to read "Tomb Raider: Genesis" here is the link: .net/s/3514129/1/Tomb_Raider_Genesis

Starting off a few days after the end of Legend, this is "Tomb Raider: Revelations."

* * *

**Tomb Raider: Revelations**

_Surely some revelation is at hand;_

_Surely the Second Coming is at hand._

_The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out_

_When a vast image out of _Spiritus Mundi

_Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert_

_A shape with lion body and the head of a man,_

_A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,_

_Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it_

_Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds._

_The darkness drops again; but now I know_

_That twenty centuries of stony sleep_

_Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,_

_And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,_

_Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?_

_-"The Second Coming", William Butler Yeats_

_

* * *

__Part One_

_The Beginning_

"_The best laid schemes of mice and men_

_Often go awry"_

_-Robbie Burns_

_

* * *

__Chapter One_

_The Plan_

_8:11 A.M._

_Croft Manor, Surrey, England_

Something was troubling Lara Croft. She looked out her window, her hazel eyes reflecting the golden rays of an April morning, deep in thought. It had only been a few days since Bolivia, and the physical and mental bruises and wounds still affected her. Amanda Evert, once thought dead and her good friend, had sabotaged Lara's efforts to regain contact with her mother, thereby sending her into Avalon when Lara was only nine.

The idea of Avalon was a mystery to Lara. She had read about the Arthurian legend when she was at school, but her professor never focused much on this paradise-like realm, preferring to concentrate on the symbolism of the romantic stories, and the factuality of a King Arthur figure. And, unfortunately, Lara knew no experts in the Arthurian legend field. That is why she sent Alister to the British Museum. Surely in this place of esteemed knowledge there would be some evidence of the location of Avalon, the daises, and Excalibur.

Excalibur: a mystery in its own right. After having trekked all over the world to put together its pieces, Lara had discovered the power it held. A devastating green bolt would fly from it just at the flick of her wrist, and would open a sort of time portal when thrust into a dais. Yet Lara had little to no knowledge of time travel, nor of how stone swords could cast green lightning, so she contacted someone who did. Professor Henry Eddington worked at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge as the head of the Department for Electrical Phenomena. If anyone knew about green lightning and time and space travel, he did. It also didn't hurt that he was a bit of an Arthur hobbyist.

Lara sighed as she got out of bed. She showered, then walked downstairs into the entrance hall. The smell of bacon wafted out of the door to the right of the entrance; Zip must have been making breakfast. She walked down the corridor and took a left towards the dining hall. This room was marvelous and emitted a gold hue from the massive chandelier. Alister Fletcher was sitting in the third chair to the right of the head chair at the massive table. He was already dressed and cleaning his glasses on his jacket. "'Morning, Lara," he said, drowsily.

"Good morning," Lara replied, sitting at the head chair. The door at the end of the hall opened and Zip walked out, wiping his hands on a napkin. "Hey, Lara," he said, sitting beside Alister.

"Good morning," Lara repeated. "Breakfast smells delicious."

"I'd hope so. Spent all morning making it. Although, I don't think Winston is still alright with me in the kitchen," Zip said.

"Ah well. It was his domain for a very long time," said Lara, smiling. The door opened again, and out shambled Winston, holding a breakfast laden tray.

"Breakfast," he said, happily. He placed the tray onto the table, then fell into his seat beside Lara.

"Thank you, Winston," she said. She reached forward with her fork and speared a sausage and placed it onto her plate, along with a strip of bacon, a bit of ham, and a small plate of fruit. Winston poured her a cup of breakfast tea and added a bit of milk and gave it to Lara. "Thank you," she said. Winston nodded in reply.

They all ate for a while, speaking about the news and weather, until Lara said to Alister, "Well, no sense in putting it off any more. Have you found anything else in the Museum's records?"

"I'm afraid not," he said, taking a bite of a kipper. "There's little to no information about King Arthur there, nor is there anything matching the description of the daises. The only thing remotely similar is Neptune's trident, which bears only a bit of a resemblance to Excalibur in the light emitting from it."

"That is a shame," Lara said, her tone lower than it had been before. She had heard of Neptune's trident, a relic found in the Mediterranean. Alister was right; the only resemblance was the mysterious blue light that glowed within it, which researchers had difficulty in classifying. "Well Zip," she said, looking up at the man with his mouth full of ham. "I hope _you_ at least have some good news."

He swallowed and said, "Yeah. The Professor sounded really interested in the test results on the sword and footage. He said to come by Tuesday at his place."

"Splendid!" Lara said, clapping her hands together.

"I thought so," Zip said with a smirk as he took a gulp of orange juice.

"Right," Lara continued. "Alister, I want you to double your efforts. Get as much information as you can on Avalon, Excalibur, and any previous histories of weapons with powers similar to the sword."

"Back to the grindstone then," he said, getting up. He thanked Zip and Winston for the breakfast and left the room.

"I figured he'd leave us with the cleaning up," Zip said, rapping his fork lightly against his empty plate and glaring at the immense amount of work to be done. Lara laughed a little and stood to clean up. Winston looked up at her, his eyes suddenly alert.

"It's alright Ms. Croft, I have it," he said, supporting himself using the arms of his chair as he made to stand. His arms were wobbling uncontrollably.

"It's fine, Winston, we'll take care of it," Lara said, gently pushing Winston back into his seat. "You just finish your food. Zip and I will take care of the cleanup today." Winston's face paled.

"Well, summon me if you need anything," he said, turning back to his food. Lara and Zip cleaned up the food and the table. Winston continued to offer his help, until Lara relented and said that he could water the indoor plants. Zip returned to his workstation, saying he would continue to look for footage on the sword. "But first," he said as he opened the door in his workstation by several highly technical-looking instruments, "I have a couple new things to show you. They just came in." He pulled out two silver suitcases and put them on his cluttered desk. He opened the first to reveal, surrounded by black foam, what Lara thought was her magnetic grappling hook, but with a relatively small metal rod emitting from it, and a slightly larger spool. The rod had a red light at its base, and three compartments around its body. "This," said Zip as he lifted the disc from the foam, "is your new grappling hook. It has all the features as the magnetic one, but press this button on the spool and…." Here Zip pressed a red button on the disk, and out popped three hooks on the rod. "Now you have a standard grappling hook. Merry Christmas." He pressed the button again to deactivate the grappling hook and placed it back into the suitcase.

"Very nice," said Lara, crossing her arms, expectantly.

"And now for my next trick," continued Zip. He opened the second case and revealed two blue canisters with a red stripe in their middles. In the middle of the stripe was the yellow and red caution triangle with the forever unfortunate black stick-figured man, this time suffering from what appeared to be an explosion. Zip did not take the two canisters out this time. "These you'll have to be careful with," he said.

"You say that like I never am," said Lara in a mock-injured voice.

"Right, you're the epitome of cautiousness. Okay, _these_ are incendiary grenades. But, they have a special liquid inside that blows the fire all over the place, like a Molotov Cocktail, but on steroids."

"Splendid," she said, turning to leave.

"Just don't let the cops catch you with 'em," Zip called after her. She chuckled.

Lara changed into her blue gym clothes and began to work out in her gym. After several minutes of swinging, climbing, and scaling, she sat in the alcove above her gym pool, letting her legs swing over the edge. She rubbed sweat from her brow and looked out the high windows on the other side of the gym. It was a windy day, and the passing clouds would interrupt the otherwise perfect light of an April afternoon. She wondered if her mother could possibly be seeing this in Avalon as well. The thought made Lara's chest tighten. She had been so close to saving her mother, so close to touching her for the first time since she was only nine, so close to fulfilling her urge to discover what caused it all, what began her life's work, only to have it taken away by Amanda.

Amanda: the thought of her made Lara's breathing quicken and her fists tighten. It was hard to believe that she was friends with her once. Her heart began to race, and she felt her arms lower automatically towards her pistols. She could have killed her and exacted revenge. But no; it was not right. She couldn't have done it. Her heart was not black as Natla had said so long ago. She had killed men before, but that was only in self-defense. She had killed Larson because she had to; otherwise Natla would have taken over the world and begun the Seventh Age, whatever that was. But Amanda: Amanda was weak. She couldn't do anything more to ruin Lara's life. So Lara let her live. It was the right thing to do. With her out of the way she could find her mother.

She went over the plan in her head. She would talk to Professor Eddington, who would hopefully know about the sword and its powers. He would give her an idea of where to look for Avalon, maybe even the locations of any daises left in the world. Afterwards she would hunt for that dais until she found it. Then, she would enter Avalon and rescue her mother. Yes, it could work. No, it _would _work. It had to. She had suffered so much in the past few days that she had to be rewarded by now.

"It'll work," she muttered. She slid off the alcove and into the pool. She swam through the hidden tunnel and into the recreational pool. She grabbed a towel, dried herself off the best she could, and headed for the shower. When finished, she sat in the center of her bedchamber, listening to music and looking out the high windows onto that April day. "It'll work," she said once more, and drifted to sleep.


	2. 1'2

_Chapter Two_

_The Plan in Action_

_Cambridge, England_

_11:47 A.M._

Lara walked down the long hallway to Professor Eddington's office. She could hardly contain her excitement in each step, and even her heels seemed to ring out happily against the muffling of the ancient rugs that lined the mansion. She eventually came to the oak door of the office and knocked three times. "Come in," said a whimsical voice inside. Lara entered and was immediately embraced in a hug. Henry Eddington was old, without a doubt, but he had a vivacity to him that contrasted with his years. His blue eyes contained a golden glint to them that few could ever resist, and he possessed a certain grandfather-like quality that many of his students enjoyed. "Hello, Lara! How wonderful it is to see you! How long has it been?"

"Too long," replied Lara, smoothing her jacket and skirt.

"Yes, far too long," he said, returning to his desk in front of the wide windows. The green grove swam in the breeze outside. The normally ghastly English weather seemed to match Lara's spirits. For the first time in a while she was supremely optimistic, so sure was she about what Eddington had to say.

"So, how are things?" he asked, folding his hands into a ball and twiddling his thumbs. "Still treasure-hunting?"

"Oh, same-old-same-old," smiled Lara.

"How's Winston? I thought it odd that he didn't call," Eddington asked.

"He was watering the plants. He's keeping busy," said Lara. "I try not to rely on him too much anymore, now that I hired more help."

"Yes, he _is_ getting on in years. Who was that Zip fellow, by the way?"

"Zip is my technical expert, he's been with me for a while. Alister, another one of my assistants, is my historian. If I'm in the field and reach a historical roadblock, he's my man," Lara answered. She then explained her reason for hiring them: that when the new millennium began and technology's pace increased, she realized her competitors would try to get ahead, and she had to match their capabilities. After all, there was only so much she could really do, one person, alone in foreign lands, especially after a few recent adventures where she was in much riskier locations than before.

"What Zip said I found interesting. Something about your father being right," said Eddington. "What did he mean by that?"

"My mother's alive, Henry. Father was right," said Lara. There was a pregnant pause. The gold in Eddington's eyes seemed to lose its luster.

"Lara," he said, leaning in and speaking with a grandfatherly voice of consolation. "Your mother's death was a tragic, tragic accident. You know I respected your father immensely, but some of his expeditions were bloated with fool's hopes. Now, I've come up with some hypotheses after viewing your films--"

"No, Henry. She's alive, and I have the proof." She took off her backpack, currently in its purse form, and pulled out a DVD from its plastic casing. "I wanted to show you this myself," Lara explained. She placed the DVD into Eddington's computer and played the footage. The sounds of her voice and Amanda's sounded just as they did in her memory. Her mother's distant echoes in the film, however, did not seem to put to justice her own memory, of the pain she felt at the epiphany that her mother was reliving the moment she disappeared. The gold in Eddington's eyes illuminated brilliantly with wonder and bafflement. When the footage ended, he sat in silence for several minutes, his brain working so hard Lara could have sworn she saw steam emit from his ears.

"Well?" she said after several minutes of silence. Eddington looked up, as if he had forgotten she was there.

"Well," he said. "Well. I wish you had shown this to me earlier."

"I know, and I'm sorry," said Lara.

"Yes," said Eddington.

"Do you have any hypotheses about this?" she asked.

"Well," he said again, "based on this preliminary viewing I have a few assumptions." He stood from his chair and began to pace the room. "But first we must begin with the sword. You said you found pieces of it scattered across the globe, correct?"

"Yes," said Lara. Her legs were crossed, and her right foot was twitching up and down.

"And you had found pictographs and temples that seemed to speak of and represent the sword, yes?"

"Yes."

"And there is no way for the sword in your possession to be anywhere else on Earth at one time. If that is correct, we can then agree that swords like, for lack of a better term, Excalibur, existed in several advanced civilizations throughout time, and, since their pieces can react with other pieces to form a singular sword, we can also agree that there was one singular design for a sword such as this, yes?"

"Yes."

"Well then, how is that possible, unless other civilizations knew of the existence of these swords, and therefore each other? Lara, the test results on that sword revealed that the material it is made from does not exist naturally on this planet. That can only mean that the substances here came from space. The rock came from an asteroid that crashed here about sixty-five million years ago. It is assumed that this is the same asteroid that killed the dinosaurs."

"It makes sense: there's debris from that across the earth," Lara muttered.

"Yes. Enough debris, in fact, to give more than ample supply for the creation of your daises and swords. Now, back to the original question: how could other civilizations have known to create these swords in the same design? Have you ever wondered about the similarities between Egyptian and Mayan pyramids?" Eddington turned to Lara; the gold glowed brilliantly.

"Yes, but there are more than enough theories for that reason," said Lara.

"Of course, but let us look at the least rational theory. What if these places knew of each other, and in fact all other civilizations as well? What if civilizations across the world shared information in one singular place?"

"Avalon?"

"Excuse me?" Eddington asked, suddenly out of his revelry. Lara explained that her mother, based on what Amanda had said, was in the magical realm after pulling out the sword before the explosion.

"Well, yes and no," Eddington continued. "What I'm suggesting is that one singular civilization, a very old one, possibly the oldest, found the rocks, discovered their power, and crafted them to the service of other civilizations, perhaps to form one whole civilization."

"And what was the rocks' purpose?"

"To take the sword-wielder to Avalon. Now, you don't think I've forgotten about your father's _other _theories, have you?" Lara shook her head no, her heart beating with anticipation.

"Perhaps he was right about the base civilization after all. What better civilization than Atlantis to base all others on?" Eddington smiled, but Lara suddenly gave a small frown.

"Yes, I've thought about that," she said. And so, she began her story about her exploits with the Scion of Atlantis, and how one of the ruler's of Atlantis, Natla, brought about its ruin.

"If we're right about this," she finished, "I think we can guess why some of these daises were destroyed and abandoned."

The old professor paused for his moment, on his face a look of childish awe. He blinked his gold-flecked eyes and continued. "Now, I've reached out to all my historical partners about sightings of anything similar to the daises and swords. One of them came back with this." Eddington returned to his desk and pulled out a black-and-white photo from one of his drawers. In the photo were several American soldiers from World War II, standing amidst a ruined dais, one of its pillars having fallen to the ground.

"My friend said that the Americans in the Pacific Theatre during World War II were ambushed above a certain island in the South Pacific. One of their cargo-planes was shot down into the mountainside, a singular mountain covered in plant-life. They called the island afterwards Green Rock Isle. When they went down to investigate, they found a massive sinkhole covered in ruins with a Stonehenge-like structure in its center. Adorning the walls were thousands of hieroglyphs and writings from seemingly every language in existence. They were all too old for the soldiers to figure out, and several of the walls had been destroyed. There weren't any later investigations."

"Why's that?" asked Lara, who's chair was now almost touching the desk.

"Who knows? The American government might've been trying to keep it hushed up. In fact it's still very secretive, I have no idea how my man got his hands on it."

Lara slumped back into her chair. Her body had been so tense with anticipation it was sore.

"This is proof that civilizations throughout history knew of each other, and in fact communicated with each other." Eddington's face was red with excitement. The gold seemed brighter than the sun.

"Do you think that is where mother is?"

"No, unfortunately. I believe that this was what we could call an ancient airport. People from all over the world gathered here to relay information to each other before passing into Avalon. It's an exciting prospect."

"Yes," said Lara, her fingers white against the arms of her chair, so tightly was she holding them, once more anticipating a revelation of truth. "But what about Avalon? How did they get there?"

"There's the rub. I can only guess from here-on (not like I haven't been guessing, of course). The sword and the daises may have some electromagnetic property in the rock that allows matter to seemingly break the space-time continuum and travel in an instant. What you saw and interacted with, your mother in the past, may have been some sort of accident. The daises may all be interconnected in some way, and a disruption, such as the destruction of the Green Rock one, may influence the others in unpredictable ways. I saw your video of you trying to use the dais in Tibet, only for it to fall apart. As a consequence of one being destroyed, the others may work only once, or not at all, we don't really know. My hypothesis is that they were used repeatedly, and that a trip to Avalon may have even been a sort of pilgrimage." Here Eddington sat down and took a long drink from his mug of coffee. He took a deep breath and finished.

"Do you understand, Lara?" he said, leaning against his chair.

"Yes…" she said at last. "I think I do."

"Excellent. So, what's next, my young traveler? What's your next move?"

"I don't really know just now. Probably a visit to Green Rock Isle and see what's on the walls. There must be some clue there," she said. She relaxed into her chair again, all her pent-up tension leaving her.

"If you want a guess from an Arthur hobbyist," Eddington said, proudly. "I would suggest Glastonbury. Specifically Glastonbury Tor. A few hundred years ago a coffin was found that supposedly held the remain of King Arthur himself, so there's one good reason. Another is the strange properties of the Tor. People say they experience strange phenomena there: cell phone batteries dying, healings, things like that. You might want to check there after the island."

"Oh thank you, Henry," Lara said. They stood and embraced, Lara so grateful she could hear the breath escape Eddington in her grasp. "Please come with me to Green Rock. I could really use your help."

"I would so love to, but I'm incredibly busy here. My team and I have been working on an electrical generator that holds enough power to… well, I shouldn't really explain. It's all very hush-hush and dull." Eddington walked from behind his desk and held Lara by the hand, leading her to the door.

Outside the grove continued to sway. She heard a bird caw somewhere in the distance, followed by another. Their caws became screeches of rage, and amidst the compendium of sounds she could have sworn she heard a male groan of irritation.

With a loud crash the window and mug shattered, covering Lara, Eddington, and the walls with coffee. A millisecond later she heard the unmistakable reverberation of a sniper rifle having fired.


	3. 1'3

_Chapter Three_

_Unexpected Company_

_Cambridge, England_

_12:30 P.M._

Lara grabbed Eddington by the collar and jerked him down beside her, then turned the desk over to provide more cover. Everything was quite still, and with the exception of sparks emitting from the now-destroyed computer, there was no sound. She quickly returned her backpack into its original form and reached inside. Just as she feared: she had forgotten her headset in the charger at home. Worse yet, her pistols were still in the armory, leaving her with no defenses. "Bugger," she summed things up succinctly.

"Lara what the bloody hell just happened?" Eddington whispered fiercely.

"Somebody's shooting at us," she replied, pulling her backpack on. She quickly took off her heels and placed them carefully out of sight before her.

Splinters of wood blasted out of the desk near Lara's right ear. The shooter was guessing at where they were. "We're going to have to make a run for it," she said, quietly.

"Lara who's shooting at us?" Eddington asked with pain and confusion.

"When I say go," she ignored him, "I want you to open the door and sprint down the hallway. I'm going to distract him."

"But Lara…."

Another explosion from the desk was all Lara needed. "Go!" she said, and pulled the desk up vertically. She heard Eddington open the door and run out it as she pushed the desk forward. Bullets pierced the desk with a mammoth intensity. She hurled it forward and ran out the open door, slamming it on her way out.

Eddington was panting on a suit of armor, clutching a stitch in his side. Lara skirted forward and asked, "Are you alright?" Eddington nodded and panted. "Good," she said in confirmation.

No more sounds echoed from the office. Everything was unsettlingly quiet. Lara knew that there was more to this than the sniping. "We've got to go," she said after a moment. "My car's just outside. I can drive you to my home, you'll be safe there." Eddington's gold flashed with excitement, though his body was quivering.

"Come on," she said, and prodded him gently forward.

The Eddington manor was very, very old. At the moment, it was currently undergoing restoration. Scaffolds lined the hallways, tarps hung from walls where the molding was falling apart. Rectangular sections of walls stayed more brightly painted than the rest of the wall because of the tapestries that were removed. Even the outside of the structure was undergoing maintenance. As Lara and Eddington passed through one of these hallways, Lara heard footsteps. They froze. She heard the slow, muffled footsteps of booted feet making their way towards them. She motioned for Eddington to crouch down as she made ready to attack the approaching person.

A mercenary rounded the corner of the hallway. Lara grabbed his rifle and jerked it out of his hand. The mercenary, surprised, nearly fell down. She used this moment to ram the rifle into the mercenary's exposed face, breaking his nose and sending him unconscious to the floor. She pulled him out of exposure of the previous hallway and into the one occupied by herself and Henry. "It's one of Amanda's," Lara muttered. Eddington's face was white and his brow was sweaty. She pulled out the pistol in his holster and placed it inside her jacket. She then took a moment to inspect the rifle.

It wasn't an ordinary rifle. Rather, it seemed more of a pressurized kind. It was silver, with a scope on top that was used for hunting. Lara looked back at the mercenary and looked for ammunition. She found a small collection of tranquilizer darts, and knew what the mercenaries were here for. "They're coming to get you, Henry," she said with apprehension. She heard Eddington stop breathing for a moment. "That sniper tried to kill me."

"Oh my God," Eddington murmured.

"Don't worry," she said, turning towards him. "You'll be safe as long as you're with me."

"But they're trying to _kill_ you, Lara," Eddington groaned.

"They tried that before but here I stand," she reassured him. "Just stay down and keep close to me. They still don't know where we are, and this tranquilizer gun is quiet enough to keep them from getting roused. As long as we stay hidden, we'll be safe. Now come on."

"But the police," he whined.

"What about them?" Lara said, slightly hopeful.

"Those bastards triggered the alarm. Look!" He pointed towards a small white box on the other wall, where a small red light was blinking. "Why can't we just wait for them?"

Lara pondered this for a moment, then sadly realized that these men were specially trained, and could easily take down the first band of police to come to the house. When she informed him of this, he moaned quietly and yielded.

They crossed into the hallway where the mercenary had been. Red paint from a fallen can was spreading on the ground. Lara made a signal to the old professor to avoid the paint and continued on. Yet, just as they were making to turn into the next hallway, another mercenary appeared. He fired his tranquilizer, and just missed Lara by inches. She pushed Eddington to keep him from danger, sending him stumbling backwards. She fired her rifle, and the dart landed just above the mercenary's collar bone. He slumped back into a tarp, pulling it down with him and revealing a portrait of Nikolai Tesla. She turned back and grabbed Henry by the hand. "Come on," she whispered fiercely.

They turned down a nearly undisturbed hallway. The next corridor would be the entrance to the main hall. When they entered it, they saw a small group of men standing in the middle of the hallway. From what Lara could see outside, an even larger group was standing guard around her car. "Damn it," she muttered. "We can't go out this way."

"Why not?" Eddington asked, completely at a loss to understand that, though Lara was tough and quick, she could not take all of the men.

"Are there any other exits out of here? Like a fire-escape, or a window closer to the ground?" For though they were in the main hall, they were still fairly high from the ground, and they couldn't jump without risking injury, especially with an old man like Eddington.

"There is the scaffolding, but we'll have to double-back to reach the window near it," said Eddington.

"Hold it!" said a voice behind them. Lara looked and saw five men with tranquilizers in their hands, all pointing at Lara and Eddington. A man with a yellow band on his arm seemed to have issued the command. He was rather short and stocky, but his eyes were malicious and gray, and the bulges on his arms betrayed a muscular figure under his uniform.

"Put down the gun, Croft," he said. His American voice seemed to match his eyes: cruel and icy. Lara heard boots run up the steps behind her as the group from the main hall rendezvoused with their captors. Lara, faced with no alternative, yielded to the yellow-banded man. A subordinate stepped forward and took the rifle.

"And the pistol," said the leader. Lara pulled out the pistol and handed it to the subordinate, who rushed back into the safety of the group. "Good girl," said the leader, "now just turn around and walk slowly forward." She turned, Eddington at her side, and slowly walked in-between the two groups of men. When they had entered the center of the main hall, Lara, out of the corner of her eye, saw the leader glance down at Eddington's paint-covered shoes that had betrayed their location and smirked to another mercenary.

It happened in a rush. She grabbed Eddington with her left hand and stole the leader's pistol with her right. She threw herself through the bewildered men beside the leader and let go of Henry, grabbing instead the leader and shoving him into the crowd of now completely confused mercenaries. She seized Eddington's hand again and sprinted with him to a random door in the side of the hall.

The white room had two tables in its center and cutlery hanging from the ceiling. Lara jammed a nearby chair against the doorknob to the kitchen. "That ought to hold them for a while," she said, out-of-breath.

"Lara… how… where…?" Eddington spluttered.

"No time for that, is there any way out of here?" Lara said, quickly.

"Yes, the dumbwaiter over here," he said, walking rapidly towards a small metal door. The elevator inside was larger than the average dumbwaiter, but still meant a tight fit. "Hurry," she said as the chair blockade began to break. She clambered hastily inside the shaft, and helped Eddington in afterward.

Lara thought correctly; it was a tight fit. She could barely reach her arms around to shut the door and pull on the ropes to lift them upward. Beneath the rusty creaking of the pulley Lara heard the kitchen door slam open and several gunshots. "The dumbwaiter!" she heard the leader scream. "They're in the dumbwaiter!" Thankfully, at that moment they had reached the top of the dumbwaiter. Eddington pushed against the door and fell out. Lara exited and helped him to his feet.

They had ended up in the attic of the manor. Various old knick-knacks and experiments surrounded them, but with the exception of the skylight, slanted against the drop of the roof, there was no window. "The ladder!" Eddington said, pointing to a ladder that led to a wooden hatch. "It goes to the roof!"

Lara ran to the old wooden ladder and climbed up it. She slammed open the hatch and climbed onto the roof. She reached down and helped Eddington to the top, then closed the hatch again. The wind was blowing hard, making Lara and the old man yell to be heard. "Where's the scaffold?" she called out.

"There!" he pointed to the left side of the roof. They ran over and saw the scaffold reach just the top of the roof.

"Ah!" Eddington let out a quick gasp and fell down, reaching behind his back, where a tranquilizer dart was currently residing. Lara spun around, pistol out, when a second tranquilizer got her in the chest. She stumbled, her right leg dropping clumsily to the surface of the roof. The serum in the dart worked quickly, and already the world was spinning.

She saw the leader step forward, felt him grab her by the arm and throw her violently down onto the scaffold. She heard him say to the others to take the old man to the truck before the cops arrived, then watched as his blurry face looked over the side. "Knock her down!" she thought she heard him say. Lara turned her head awkwardly and watched as a group of mercenaries on the ground destroyed the scaffold's supports. Then her stomach heaved as she was sent sprawling into the grove, twisted metal falling all around her. She remembered seeing a falling green leaf, and then no more.


	4. 1'4

_Chapter Four_

_Destination: Green Rock_

_Croft Manor, Surrey, England_

_2:11 P.M._

Lara was still in her bed the day after. Once the police rescued her from the tree, they interrogated her for several hours in her hospital room, insinuating that she was involved in the kidnapping of Eddington. She was left with the promise from the officer that if they had any information on the kidnappers, she would be the first one they informed. An hour later, she was released from the hospital, with nothing but some aspirin and a comment from the nurse that her lack of injury was remarkable.

A day later Lara remained asleep in her room. The side-effects of the tranquilizer had yet to wear off, leading to bizarre dreams and headaches whenever she awoke. Yet, it appeared now that one of those moments of consciousness had come. She sat up and stretched, then rubbed her eyes to relieve mounting pressure from her headache. With a sudden, seemingly random, start, she jumped out of bed and jogged to Zip's workstation. "Any calls?" she asked, frenzy in her bloodshot eyes. Zip shook his head no.

Lara's body slumped. In her dreams she imagined Henry being tortured in unspeakable ways by Amanda, and in her waking moments she frantically thought about his whereabouts, yet to no avail. She had no idea where Amanda lived, nor where any of her hideouts were. For all she knew, they were in some volcano lair on an island in….

The island. Green Rock. She had to get there immediately. If Eddington had indeed been tortured and given up any information, Amanda would waste no time in trying to get to Green Rock before Lara did. "Zip," she spoke up, "I need you to do research on a place called Green Rock Isle. It won't be on any of the standard searches so look in the classified results. Once you find it's location, charter me a flight as quickly as you can."

"Why? What's Green--"

"I'll explain when I get there, just be quick about it!" Lara ran up the stairwell and to the balcony.

"Lady Croft!" called out the wizened old voice of Winston. "I have a cup of tea ready for you!"

"No time, Winston. Have to rush out of England," Lara said without breaking her gate.

"But I thought we could share a spot of tea like we used to," he said, a twinge of disappointment in his voice.

"Sorry, maybe another time," Lara said, and rushed into the hallway to her room.

As she threw her brown gear into her suitcase, she thought absent-mindedly about Winston, standing in the main hall, Zip busily looking for Green Rock, and Alister in the library researching more information about Avalon. Her stomach burned with that familiar, terrible feeling of guilt, yet she had to shove it aside for now. That tea would have to wait. Eddington was being held captive by a lunatic, being subjected to who knows what. There were more important things than tea.

Downstairs, Winston shambled back into his kitchen, hoping that Lara would soon realize that some things, though maybe not now, were less important than tea.


	5. 2'1

_Part Two_

_No Turning Back_

"_And I gaveth my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: But I perceived that this also was a chasing after wind._

_For in much wisdom is much grief;_

_And he who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow."_

_-Ecclesiastes 1:17-18_

* * *

_Chapter One_

_What Was Next_

_Green Rock Isle, South Pacific_

_9:09 A.M._

The waves were very rough as Lara neared the giant landmass that was Green Rock Isle. Though the sky was clear and electric blue, the sea was murky and bumpy. "Oh good God, I'm going to be sick," said Alister into Lara's headset.

"Then don't watch," said Lara, who herself was feeling slightly queasy.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Alister. I'm fine," said Zip coolly.

"Now, now Zip. To be fair the waves are fairly rocky. It's bright and sunny on this end, what's the weather supposed to be like later?" she asked.

"Uh… same all day. 95 degrees and sunny in your region," he answered.

"How much longer, Lara?" Alister asked, clearly in a state of misery. She looked down at her sonar and judged that here would be as far as she could go without risking hitting a reef. "You're in luck, Alister. I'm stopping here," Lara said.

"Thank the Lord," Alister said in relief.

"But I'm getting into the raft, which will _really_ make you sick," she added.

"Oh dear," Alister moaned. Lara chuckled to herself and anchored the yacht. She lowered the black raft into the ocean and climbed into it.

The raft bounced violently as she drove towards the island. "Oh no, you were right," cried Alister. Lara couldn't help but laugh. It felt good. For the past forty-eight hours she had felt sick with worry, but now that she was nearing the island, hoping to discover some secret that could aid in her quest to find and rescue both her mother and Eddington, she felt her spirits rise. It took only a few minutes to reach the pale beach and pull her raft ashore. "It's all over, Alister. You can look again," she said.

"Oh… thank you," said Alister, out of breath. Lara took a moment to check her surroundings. The beach was completely empty; the sand, though numbed greatly by her thick leather boots, felt good in its softness. The sun did not beat down on her, but seemed to give her energy. There was little humidity, and the cool breeze felt uplifting. It was, to put it frankly, bucolic. "So Zip," said she, "which direction is the cargo-plane?"

"Uh… about a kilometer to your right, then north," said Zip. Lara turned to her right and began forward. After a few minutes, Zip told her to turn north. Lara did so and stepped into the jungle.

Slowly, as she advanced, the sand melted into grass and dirt. The palm trees became more numerous and thick. The sound of the waves dissipated as birds cawing grew. After an hour she came to a chasm. Its abyss eventually became a humid fog the farther down it went. Zip whistled. "Big drop," he said.

"Not to worry," said Lara. She walked over to a palm tree that had grown awkwardly at an angle, conveniently parallel to another tree that seemed to grow out of the cliff on the other side. She climbed up the first tree and took a moment to measure the distance. She pressed the miniscule red button on her grappling spool, emitting the three hooks from the metal rod. She tugged the hook and threw it with all her strength toward the other tree. When the hook grabbed hold, she released her grip and let herself fall down and towards the other side. Her fingers dug into the earth when she made it, and she hoisted herself upwards. "See? Nothing to worry about at all," she said, releasing the hook from the tree and letting it wind back into her spool. She turned and passed again into the jungle.

The vegetation was thicker and more lush here, appearing untamed and savage. Tropical flowers were a brighter, almost sickly color. Palm fronds sunk down to the earth, as if trying to return to their ancient home in the soil. Birds refused to caw or sing, and the air was filled with the whispering of trees. The green mountain grew closer and closer to Lara as she traipsed and tripped over clawing vines. "Getting tired yet?" asked Alister.

"Getting there," Lara panted as she walked on the rapidly rising ground. The trees diminished in number as the ground became progressively rockier. The fresh grass and moss-covered earth made scaling, much less walking, difficult. The mountainside continued to rise until Lara was no longer walking, but climbing, hand-over-hand, up the mountain. "I knew you should have brought your climbing gear," said Zip, sarcastically. Lara didn't answer because she knew he was right. The rocks and earth seemed different here, fresh and constantly changing, like the island itself was alive.

She grasped a vine as rocks slid under her, plummeting towards the now-distant surface. "Careful, girl!" warned Zip. Lara looked upward and saw how near she was to another ledge. While she had been climbing, Lara had crossed several outcroppings and ledges that varied from lush and hospitable to dead and volcanic. Now, as she began to lose her strength and stamina, she hoped this ledge would be one of the former. She climbed up the vine, praying it would not snap, until she finally reached the top.

The first thing she saw was the massive rusty tail. It remained elevated in the air, even after decades of exposure. There was a deep gash that cut nearly to the other side as it melted into the evergreen fuselage of the cargo-plane. Vines crawled up it, weaving in-and-out of bullet holes and their kin wrought by rust. The dead bird's wings no longer were one with it. The right wing had gone missing, but the left stayed wedged deep into the side of the great rock. The cockpit and most of the front of the fuselage bored into the mountain and remained caught in its vice. Barely legible on its side was the legend, "The Albatross", beneath an image of the plane's namesake soaring above a galleon. "I found the plane," said Lara.

She approached the great skeleton with caution, careful to not to disturb it from its slumber. "Lara, look at the ground," said Alister. She did so and observed that the ground was adorned with ancient, cracked tiles, that dipped to form a sort of bowl. She looked up and saw the remains of an ancient waterfall, now run dry. Straining her eyes she saw that the plane's head had smashed into a mouth covered in tiles that let the water run down into its maw. Remembering to keep this in mind, she wandered into the plane through an open hatch.

The smell of molding leather and ancient air filled her nostrils and nearly sent her reeling back. "Can't imagine that smells great," said Zip.

"Trust me, it doesn't," said Lara, collecting her mind and investigating. To her right, leather cargo netting held back two large metal boxes that strained against their barricade. Further down dust glittered in the thin ray of light from the aforementioned gash. To her left, rock and vine crawled out of the dark cockpit, where Lara knew the crushed remains of the pilots would be. "Anything?" asked Zip.

"Nothing interesting," she said. She turned and exited the ancient tube, taking a moment to breath in the tropical atmosphere.

She took one step forward and then the earth began to shake. Great pits began to form that drilled deep into the earth, into hollow chasms that led to a never-ending abyss. The cliff Lara had climbed began to crumble, and the ground beneath her feet began to give way and become swallowed up. She turned back and leapt into the plane. Her fingers dug into the inch-thick moss and rust that had grown over the metal as her feet dangled down into the void. With a combination of strength and adrenaline she lurched herself into the plane. The fuselage began to tilt to the left, sending loose items rolling towards her. She scrambled towards the cargo-netting and wrapped her wrist and ankle through the gaps. The mountain slowed its seizure, until all was calm and quiet once more. "Lara, Lara, are you okay?" said Zip and Alister. Yet Lara did not respond. Her eyes were trained on the sliver of light that began to grow, followed by the sound of decade-old rusty metal finally giving way. "Oh shi--!" began Lara, but her voice was drowned out by the destruction before her. The tearing metal grew into a roar as the tail was amputated from the fuselage, and, with no counterbalance, the rest of the plane fell down into the maw of the mountain.

The world became dark and loud. Metal tore against stone, glass shattered, and the metal boxes rammed repeatedly against the cargo-netting until they nearly broke through. Lara's pupils dilated into great black orbs. Her body was rigid and held fast to the netting, even though the fuselage rolled back and forth with violence. Zip and Alister were screaming into her headset, trying to understand what was happening. Even if she could respond, Lara would not know what to say. The darkness caused a disorienting effect that limited her bearing. The sounds caused her great distress and anxiety, and she willed them with all her heart to stop. Her white knuckles dug into the ancient netting, cold sweat dripped down her face, only to be immediately cast away into the tunnel, and a paling that affected her whole body. Then the world became light again, and there was one last magnificent bang before it all became silent once more.

"Lara, Lara!" shouted Alister.

"Lara! Say something, damn it!" screamed Zip.

"I'm here," said Lara, hoarsely. There were many sighs of relief over her headset.

"We thought you were a goner," said Alister, breathless.

"So did I," said Lara, finally relinquishing her grip. Her fingers were bloody and raw from holding so tightly. Her legs remained fragilely upright, supporting her against gravity that pulled her to the right of the fuselage. The plane had landed at an angle, its right side taking the blunt of the weight. Lara gripped a protruding wall and looked out what was left of the cockpit. The plane was pinned against smooth wall on that side, and looking out the tail-end, Lara could see that that end was, too, pinned against a smooth wall beneath the winding tunnel. She made her way awkwardly towards the hatch and grasped its side when the plane trembled again. Lara lost her grip and quickly caught the net as the plane began to tilt starboard. The metal roar returned, and then the plane fell down, down, down into the sickening unknown.


	6. 2'2

**AN: **Hey folks. I really appreciate you taking your time to read my story. I would just ask that you please leave a review for it. I worked very hard on this story, and I would like to receive some comments on it. My policy is that if you review me, I'll review you. So please, after reading, leave a comment. Thank you. _

* * *

__Chapter Two_

_Old Friends_

_11:01 A.M._

_Green Rock Isle, South Pacific_

Lara flew back against a protruding wall that formed an entrance into the cockpit. Her head smashed against the aged metal, creating white stars that disrupted her vision. She heard a great crash of water, and witnessed as a terrible fissure formed horizontally in the middle of the fuselage's roof while the tail end bent back towards the floor. A metal case ripped through the cargo netting and barely missed Lara as it fell into the cockpit and to the deep of the lake. "Lara! Get up!" she heard voices command. Her right hand twitched spasmodically while the rest of her body remained still. Cold water seeped into the back of her brown top, finally awakening her. She sat up quickly, the blood rushing to her head. She precariously stood, and then fell back down. Yet the water was rising quickly, and did not hesitate to reach her neck. Soon she was completely submerged, the cold filtering throughout her body. She swam upwards and grasped the hatch, waiting for the water to rise just a little higher so that she could crawl through. Suddenly the sound of leather cords snapping alerted her hearing, and she looked up to see a metal box come roaring towards her. She pushed herself out of the way and back under the water. The box faced little resistance as the cargo-net snapped, and the box crashed against the wall, warping it from the impact.

Lara resurfaced to see that the hatch had been submerged. The plane made a terrible groan and sped down into the watery void. She dove back down and grabbed the side of the hatch and launched her way through. She turned back to watch as the dead creature flew once more to its doom in the dark, cold lake. With all haste Lara resurfaced, coughing loudly. She swam to the wet shoreline and pulled herself atop it. She coughed noisily again, expelling water from her lungs, and then laid flat on her back as her mind returned to her.

"Lara! Jesus Christ! Lara are you okay?" exclaimed Zip. Lara nodded her head, knowing that Zip and Alister would understand. After a few moments, Lara recollected her breathing and awareness and sat up gently. "I'm… alright," she panted.

"Thank the Lord," said Alister. Lara stood up awkwardly and noticed the details of the cave for the first time. The walls were covered with strange green hieroglyphs that cast an eerie glow when combined with the blue reflections of the lake. All across the floor were piles and mounds of gold and treasure. What caught Lara's curiosity, however, was that the treasures were of all different origins. There were gilded terra-cotta soldiers from China, golden plates and statues from Mexico, great ivory carvings from Africa, rows of scimitars from the Middle-east, large bronze swords from England, and many others, all from around the world. "You can make some serious bling from all this," joked Zip, but Lara did not smile. She was suddenly captivated by the green hieroglyphs. "Are you getting all of this?" she said as she navigated through the golden mounds and up to the dark, mossy walls. She placed her hand on one of the glowing hieroglyphs and said, in awe, "These are Atlantean glyphs."

"As in…." said Alister, with growing comprehension.

"This is the same writing from the walls I saw in Atlantis," said Lara.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Atlantis? Like, from the whole Scion thing?" said Zip.

"Yes," said Lara, looking slowly around so that the camera in her headset could pick up every minute detail. Zip swore in amazement. Alister followed.

"Atlantis is the base civilization," said she. "Father and Henry were right." When she felt she had picked up all she could, she stood upright again and faced a large passage. "Did you get everything?" she asked Zip.

"Everything," he confirmed. Lara proceeded forward and was about to leave the cave when Zip quickly asked, "You're not bringing any of the treasure?"

"There's more important things to do," she said, not breaking her gait.

The stone hallway became progressively cleaner and lighter as Lara proceeded down it. Vines grew less numerous, moss less thick and apparent. The air, however, became drier and older, as if breathed by death. Indeed, the aura of the hallway became eerie and void-like. There were no drips of water, no scurry of rodents, just the loud thump of leather sole against dry stone. Lara turned a corner and came to something she did not expect: a tomb. Here, a small square high on a wall to her left allowed a glimmer of light to illuminate it. Yet, the light was obstructed by a tall onyx statue. "Dear God," said Lara with fear (though she did not know why).

The statue was of Natla, the third ruler of the Sacred Triumvirate of Atlantis, who Lara had fought against over ten years prior for the Scion of Atlantis. Even etched in stone she was imposing and sinister looking, her great bat-like wings outstretched, her long, spindly fingers curled together at her torso. Her pointed face was bold and superior, and her empty eyes stared off into the distance, while her mouth was curled into a smile all at once alluring, mysterious, and sinister. Beneath her was a great marble sarcophagus that Lara knew to be empty. After all, when Lara had battled Natla, she had trapped her under a pillar in Atlantis. Natla's rotting corpse was far away, and there was nothing for Lara to worry about. Then she heard a loud crack, like a tree branch breaking. Above her were dozens of lime-colored pods wrapped in vines. A thick fluid dripped out of them and onto the floor.

"What the hell are those?" said Zip, his voice full of fear.

"What's left of the Atlanteans," said Lara, and she turned to look for an exit. In a wall opposite the statue was an indented portion of solid, sealed wall, like a doorway. The cracking from above grew louder. She looked up and saw the fluid dripping out faster now, and stringy gaps beginning to grow. The pods pulsated, shaking the vines, dropping several leaves. From them a few loud moans began to emit, like small, corrupted children awakening early from their rest. Lara ran to the seal and looked all around it for a lever, but found it shut tight. She pulled a grenade off the back of her belt, pulled the pin, and placed it directly beneath the seal, then sprinted behind the sarcophagus.

There was a tremendous explosion. Bits of rock went flying passed her, one striking Natla's head and sending it reeling back. At the same time, great, wet bursts came from the ceiling, and, one-by-one, Atlantean mutants fell to the ground. Their skin was like bare muscle and bone; however, it was stained with a sickly greenish tinge like rotting meat. Their eyes were yellow like the yolks of eggs, with red veins closing in towards the center where they collected into a fierce white pupil. Their teeth were like ivory, pointed as if they were vampires. Yet it was their roar that struck terror deep into Lara. Their roars were ungodly, deep growls given to them at birth as some evil gift. It had been many years since Lara had encountered one, and the fear they instilled in her then remained in her now.

She took out her pistols and opened fire. With a sickening crunch a bullet pierced the skull of one of the mutants, sending it reeling back and spraying its close surroundings with gore and cerebral fluids. BANG BANG BANG! It took three bullets to take down the next monster. Five for the third one. Yet for each one she took down, two would replace it. "Get out of there!" shouted Alister. Lara looked left and saw the door was clear of monsters, and a small gap had formed in the bottom corner. Guns still in hand, she sprinted out of the tomb and into a massive hall filled with pillars, some upright, most broken. A piece of broken stone had fallen onto a depressed tile many years ago, causing the door to close, but Lara took only the slightest notice. She could feel the mutants behind her, following her with every step. She shot randomly after her, hoping to have at least gotten a few. She slid, feet-first, underneath a fallen pillar and looked back. What only could be described as a horde was following her. She continued running, her breathing coming in short, high-pitched gasps. A stitch was forming in her side, and her legs felt like giving out.

A few feet ahead was a fork. The dead-end wall was badly damaged from nature. Thick tree-roots bored in from the ceiling and clung to the wall, creating small holes and fissures. One of these was on ground level, and appeared just large enough for Lara to fit through. When she made it here, she replaced her pistols and climbed, feet-first, into the gap. She took a long tree root and began to clamber down. A few feet above her, a mutant snapped its jaws through the hole. It growled and roared, bits of foam drizzling towards Lara. It bit the root in half, plummeting Lara towards the ground.

She landed hard, but thankfully, she had already been close to the floor. She took out her pistols again and reloaded. She aimed them at the hole, waiting for them to break through. But the mutant removed his head. They roared and howled once more, and then disappeared. Lara could hear them moving to the left, and hoped she would not see them again for a long time.

She replaced her pistols, sat on the ground, and took a shuddering breath. Her lungs ached and felt they could never take in air again. "Lara. Are you hurt? Is everything alright?" Alister asked.

"That… seems to be… the question… of the day," panted Lara. She heard a few relieved chuckles and smiled. After recovering for a few minutes, she stood and examined where she was. It appeared to be another hallway, but the pillars were in much better condition, and adorned with the dark-green hieroglyphs. In between pillars were giant statues of great regality. They were from just as many places as the treasures were. There were kings, sultans, pharaohs, emperors, and so many others. They were in magnificent condition, as if time had stood still. She thought she even recognized a few.

"Lara… this place… it's wonderful," said Alister, his voice just as filled with awe as Lara felt. Zip snorted.

"Yeah, except for the pod monsters, this place is great. Better than Disney World," he said. Lara smiled, her eyes still wide with wonder. She suspected this was the passage men from all over the world took to the dais, and felt relieved in her hypothesis, for there would be no traps here. After several minutes of proceeding down the chamber she saw the final ruler, a man she recognized as Julius Caesar. "So much for Plato," Alister said. She passed down a magnificent stairwell and turned to her right.

The room was supported by six pillars of men from Egypt, Peru, and China, with a ledge high up on either side, and levers exactly parallel. Two sealed doors on the other side of the room were gilded and thick, and directly above her, held by several different precious metals, was an iron version of Excalibur. "It doesn't look that difficult," Lara said, walking over to a nearby pillar.

The cold howl returned. Lara looked up and saw, out of passages above the ledges, mutants rushing out like ants. She wasted no time in taking out her pistols and firing rapidly into the creatures. They seemed to had grown in number, filtering out with all haste and awaiting their first meal of flesh and bone. Lara jumped out of the way of a tackling mutant, but landed directly in front of another, who leapt on her with all its weight. The hot, stinking breath made her insides coil, and its leathery blood-red tongue attempted to lap at Lara's cheek. She heaved her arms against the beast, forcing it back, and killing it with a few gunshots. She leapt onto a close pillar of an Egyptian and climbed upward with one hand, and a pistol in another.

The mutants scaled the statue as fast as she did. Their infernal claws dug into the pristine body, scarring it with long, serrated gashes. Lara shot one at point-blank range, sending its body careening into the others following her. She reached the ledge and pulled herself up. Then, first replacing her pistol, she reached behind her back and pulled out, in each hand, a grenade. She pelted them down into the statue, where they exploded, destroying the base of the statue and a few mutants. With no support, the torso of the pillar fell, releasing brick after brick from the ceiling. The room began to shake as each pillar was forced to bear a heavier load. More mutants clambered up these rapidly weakening pillars towards Lara. Faced with no other recourse, she reached to the sides of her backpack and pulled out the two incendiary grenades. "Stand back!" Zip yelled to Lara. She activated the grenades and threw them to the ground. She leaned as close to the wall as she could when they exploded, creating a massive burst of heat that Lara could feel wrapping around her like a cocoon.

She turned around and saw small patches of flame on her ledge and even the ceiling. The floor had become a lake of fire, its denizens: the mutants. They writhed and seized in agony as their naked flesh cooked and blackened. They tried crawling up the statues, but they died before they could reach the summits. The hall continued to crumble into the fire, and the ledge Lara was standing on began to fall apart. She ran quickly to the lever and pulled it. The emerald lock of the door was pulled back into its recess in the wall, but its twin remained in place. Lara pulled out her grapple and threw it onto the iron Excalibur. She leapt as her ledge gave way, and she swung through the air. The last of the mutants gave a half-hearted leap to Lara as she passed through the blistering atmosphere and onto the other ledge. Excalibur fell with a horrid crash to the ground, pulverizing the corpses. Lara pulled the second lever, and watched as the final lock deactivated. With a dying groan the golden doors slowly opened, illuminating the dull red room with natural, living light. Dirt and rock began to collect beneath them, quickly sealing the exit. Lara's ledge began to collapse towards her. The golden door nearest to her burst off its hinges and smashed on her ledge. She jumped onto it as it began to slide into the flame. She sprinted across it and jumped into the quickly gathering dirt mound. She soared over the top and rolled onto a narrow stone path out of the doorway, just as the exit sealed, trapping the fire and the final destruction of the chamber.

Lara coughed out the soot and dust and breathed in the cool, refreshing aroma of the tropical air. "Did that really just happen?" said Alister.

"It happened," panted Lara.

"Damn," said Zip in amazement. "Kickin' ass, girl!" Lara laughed at this and stood. She had arrived at last, and nothing could have prepared her for the enormity of it. The pit she was in was larger than gigantic. Vines crept down and made their homes into deep crevices. Small birds, too, lived here amongst the plant life. Spiraling all around it were, not just crevices, but ancient inscriptions that Lara recognized from around the world. In the forefront, with the deepest carvings, were Atlantean runes. "Can you read any of the inscriptions?" asked Alister. Lara inspected one that she recognized as ancient Chinese.

"Bits and pieces. 'Sword,' 'dais,' 'leader.' Not much else. The weather has really gotten to them. The only one that hasn't decayed is the Atlantean rune." The pit's surface was a massive stone that jutted high over an abyss. Around this ring-like surface was an outer band of nothingness, leading only to the very bottom of the pit. Lara got as close as she could to this band and examined the runes. Here, amidst all the other languages, the runes appeared similar to the writings wrapping around her. "I think," she said, carefully inspecting them, "that Atlantean uses variations of all other languages for its writing."

"Or other languages use variations of Atlantean for their writings," said Alister.

"Spot on," said Lara. "I can recognize a bit of Egyptian hieroglyphics here. And some Chinese writings there. I even think there is a bit of old Latin. But all of the words are written using different language's letters. And they're all written in strange ways that I can't completely make out."

"Get some film of it and I'll try and get the computer to read the writings and come up with some translations," said Zip.

"Excellent Zip, you're a life-saver," said Lara. She stood there for a few more minutes, allowing the camera to record as much as it could. When Zip said that he had gotten the footage, Lara turned to the thing that intrigued her desperately.

Square in the center of the pit were the great black pillars and dais that Lara had come to recognize. However, they did not emit their bright green glow, and three of the pillars had been destroyed by time or man. The dais in the center was cracked and rotten, mold and moss thriving within its recesses. Yet there was something about this ruin that was different. It seemed much larger and greater, almost altar-like. "Yes… I think this is where they all congregated," she said, running her hand along the cold stone.

In the distance there was a growing buzz. Lara recognized it immediately as a helicopter. A large one. "Oh no," she said, searching frantically for a place to hide. She ran to the edge of the floor and slowly crept down its side, her fingers still holding onto the stone surface. The sides of the stone were filled with holes and crevices, allowing Lara a place for her feet. She looked up and watched as the massive black helicopter flew over her and landed on the stone. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought that the helicopter's riders could hear her. "Out of the frying pan…." she heard Zip say before Alister hushed him. The helicopter's rotors slowed down until they became a hum, and beneath them she could hear the far too familiar voice of Amanda Evert.

"Get out," she ordered. Lara heard the loud thump of a body hitting the stone. A man moaned loudly. She immediately recognized him as Henry Eddington. Lara peered low over the top of the stone and saw Eddington slowly stand, the pale Evert looking over him. His left eye's golden glint had been replaced with black and purple. He bore several bandages on his right arm, and a sling on his left. Evert's malicious lips curled into a smile as she watched the poor old man stand. Out of the helicopter came four mercenaries, the yellow-banded leader, and a man wearing aviator sunglasses and a pale fedora. He wore a blue Hawaiian shirt and gray pants, with a sniper rifle swung over his arm. His lips were thin and looked as if they had never before been used, and his face seemed blank, hidden behind the glasses. It gave him an unnatural look, as though he had been crafted this way at the moment of his creation.

Evert turned to the yellow-banded man. "Help him up, Seth," she said. The man named Seth grabbed Eddington by the back of his neck and pulled him up. Eddington groaned again in pain. Evert walked up to the dais and knelt down beside it. She ran her thin, tattooed hand across the stone and said, "You didn't say it was destroyed." Her face remained passive, yet her voice chilled the air around her by fifty degrees. She turned and looked at Eddington, who's face seemed both resigned and aware. "You said that I wouldn't need the sword. You said I wouldn't have to use that damned thing of yours! You said that I would just have to come here! You lied to me." She slapped Eddington across the face with the back of her hand. Eddington spit blood on her shoe.

BANG BANG BANG BANG! Two mercenaries fell to the ground, dead. Lara had pulled herself up while they were distracted and shot the mercenaries holding Eddington captive. She dove out of the way as the other two mercenaries opened fire. Eddington pulled himself free and ran as fast as his age would allow to Lara, who had hidden behind a collapsed pillar. She threw her last grenade at the attackers. She heard a scream, and knew one was down. "Lara, there's another dais," said Eddington quickly.

"Where?" said Lara, firing off several rounds.

"Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the Los Rios mountains," he said. He rubbed his left arm painfully. "In the Valle de Rojo there is a closed off path. Go down there and you'll find the dais. She wants to use my generator to open the portal."

"So why are you here?" said Lara, squeezing off a round before reloading.

"I lied and told her that she could come here and use the portal without the sword or the generator. I thought you had already been here and I had to tell her something."

"It's only been two days, Henry," said Lara as she continued firing.

"I know, Lara, but what else could I do? If she had gone straight to New Mexico and used the generator she would already be in Avalon. I had to delay her in some way!" Eddington's forehead was starting to bleed where an old cut had begun to scab over.

"We're getting out of here," said Lara as she began to reload. She stole a glance over the pillar and saw that Evert was safely inside the helicopter, waiting for the fighting to stop. She quickly ducked back down as the sniper fired at her.

"No, Lara, I can't make it," said Eddington. "I'll be fine. They're not going to kill me anytime soon. I'm the only one who can work the generator. Just get to New Mexico and stop her there." Lara's insides shriveled. She couldn't bear the thought of Eddington facing the consequences of his deceit, but she had no other choice. She counted down to three and took off at a dead sprint to the side of the stone and leapt down, grabbing one of the outcroppings as she fell.

The helicopter began to whirr again. She heard Eddington be lifted up and shoved inside, but the door never closed. She heard approaching footsteps, and looked up to see Amanda standing over her. "Why did you do it?" she asked.

"Do what?" said Lara, practically forcing her tongue to work.

"Don't give me that ignorant bullshit, Lara. You killed James."

"I had to, Amanda," said Lara. She saw Evert had a pistol in her hand. Lara's arms were shuddering.

"That's not an answer," she said, aiming the pistol at Lara. Lara's whole body began to tremble.

"Please, Amanda, listen to reason."

"I'm going to Avalon, and you won't be able to stop me this time. I'll say hello to your dearest mommy there." The adrenaline in Lara's body took over. She let go of the outcropping and fell, down into the dark.

There was a tremendous splash when she hit the water. Lara looked up to see that the light was a faint sliver in the darkness. She could barely even hear the helicopter. "Lara?" said Alister.

"I'm fine. I have to get to New Mexico," she said.

"We know. Zip is on the telephone getting you a direct flight from Fiji to Albuquerque," he said.

"Good," said she, turning on her light. It lit up the area and showed the wet, dark walls, adorned with mud and mold. There were no footholds down here. She dove under and saw how deep the water went. A few feet down, she saw closed off pipes, about twenty feet away from each other. Directly opposite them were levers, which Lara guessed opened them. She swam to one and pulled, then immediately resurfaced. Her PLS battery died then, but she was able to feel the water level lower. Slowly, she was pulled to the pipe closest to her. She was then quickly sucked in, down into the rabbit hole.

The pipe was small and simple. There were no tiles as in the waterfall tunnel, just metal that had been dry for years on end. The water level was low, about to Lara's collar bone, but moved very fast. After a few minutes, she was suddenly blinded by the sun as she was rocketed out of the pipe and into a river. The river ran through a dense forest and then out into the ocean. Lara swam onto the white beach and took a moment to regain her normal breathing. "Don't worry," Zip said, returning. "You're only about five minutes away from the raft."

"At last," Lara said, standing. "Something easy."


	7. 2'3

_Chapter Three_

_Rescuing Professor Eddington_

_1:13 P.M._

_Los Alamos, New Mexico_

The warm air passed by Lara with no resistance. The loud roar of her motorcycle was all she could hear beneath her helmet. "How much farther?" she asked.

"A couple more miles," said Zip. Lara had recently arrived in New Mexico from Fiji, and had little sleep on her flight. She had no other clothes except an off-white colored, short-sleeved blouse, her standard brown shorts and very few supplies. The desert she was in was barren and brown, a shocking alteration to the vibrant green of the island. The Los Rios mountains were seemingly devoid of life, leaving only barren cliffs for one to look upon. The air was hot and dry, and no lingering cloud hung in the heavens. The craggy cliffs hung mysteriously over her, and the terrifying drops only a hairline away from her led into sharp, long-dead riverbeds.

The Valle de Rojo, where Lara currently was driving, was notorious for its gold and silver deposits in the refreshing shadows of the earth. As a result, frequent dynamite explosions plagued the roads, causing massive boulders to roll down to the ground and crush anything in their way. Yet Lara would have to brave these obstacles if she wanted to save Henry Eddington. The plan, however, was still just brewing in her mind as to how to save him, and lack-of-sleep only impeded this thought. She hoped fortune would be with her in her quest, and continued down the winding path of barren land.

After several minutes of driving, Lara rounded a bend and came upon a blockade. There were two old pick-up trucks and three men, all with guns. One man Lara immediately recognized as one of Evert's mercenaries, yet the others were not. One man was Caucasian and dressed in flannel, a brown beard tinged with gray beginning to grow. The other was Hispanic and dressed in an football jersey. The mercenary stepped forward and held up his hand to stop her. Lara pulled directly up to him and put the brake on her motorcycle.

"The road's closed," he said in a bold voice. His eyes roved over Lara, looking for any signs of weaponry. Thankfully, Lara had hidden her pistols behind her back to avoid attracting unwanted attention while on the highway.

"Why?" she said, trying to hide her accent.

"Mine accident," he said. His finger caressed the trigger of his rifle.

"That's a shame," she said. The man's eyebrow twitched with sudden recognition.

"Could you please dismount your motorcycle?" he said, his voice now slightly more high-pitched. Lara acquiesced and stood, her shielded eyes still staring directly into the man's. He began to raise his rifle covertly, but Lara quickly noticed. She pulled a pistol out from behind her and positioned the mercenary directly between herself and the two men.

"Put down your guns!" she ordered them. They looked at each other quizzically, then back at her. "Put down your guns or he dies!" She felt the mercenary tremble beneath her fingertips as the white man shrugged carelessly. He aimed his rifle at the mercenary and killed him. Zip and Alister shouted in shock as Lara then trained her pistol on the two men. BANG BANG and they were dead.

"She must be running out of money for mercenaries," said Lara, pitilessly, as she mounted her motorcycle and started off down the road once more. "Now Amanda's hiring cheap guns-for-hire. They have no allegiance."

The air seemed warmer now, the cliffs more imposing. They began to turn a deep red color, the remnants of aeons passed. The sun was rising higher in the sky, but did not burn. Rather, it gave energy to Lara, much like on Green Rock. Yet the road went on and on, constantly turning at sharp, seemingly random corners. Her eyes drifted in and out of focus every so often. "Zip," she said, trying to keep her senses together, "has the computer translated any of the runes?"

"Just two words from the first line: 'In Avalon'. Lara, it's going to take a while to translate the whole thing," said Zip. Lara sighed, wishing that both the road and the progress of the translation would move with alacrity.

Time trickled past. The sun continued to rise higher, warming her and keeping her awake. The road was rockier and older, but tire treads disturbed the age-old dust. Lara followed them far, far into the mountain. She passed several bridges over dry riverbeds, until she came to one that was broken. "This shouldn't be difficult," she said, backing up her motorcycle. Lara then quickly accelerated forward, across the bridge and into the air, landing like a ballerina on the other side. "Nicely done," said Alister.

After a few more minutes, she was about to turn a corner when gunfire quickly came upon her. She spun her motorcycle and leapt behind a fallen boulder. The motorcycle sputtered and died, destroyed by those aiming for Lara. She pulled our her pistols and fired at her attackers, a mercenary and two guns-for-hire. One was immediately taken down, while the remaining men hid behind the pickup trucks. The gun-for-hire jumped into a truck and started the engine. Lara shot out the tires and then the man. Now there was just the mercenary.

Yet the two remained at fragile peace while time trickled by like sand in a sieve. Lara stood from behind her cover and cautiously moved forward, careful to keep the dirt beneath her quiet, leaving the mercenary unawares. "Careful," said Alister. She crossed the front of the truck and pointed her pistols towards empty ground. Lara's heart then skipped a beat. Suddenly, she was flung forward by a terrible strike. Her pistols flew from her hands as she landed hard into the dry earth. She looked up and saw the mercenary standing above her, his rifle aiming directly for her heart. She kicked the rifle from his hand and leapt upward. She punched the man in the chest and visible portion of his face. He spat and flew a fist at Lara, which Lara then proceeded to block. She deflected another punch, but a kick sent her stumbling back. He aimed for another kick, but she grabbed his leg and pushed it away. He reached to punch Lara, only for her to grab his outstretched arm and twist it until there was a very audible crack. She let him go and kicked him hard in the face with her steel-toed boot, with an impact so shocking it sent his helmet flying into the dust. Then, to finally finish him off in her epic fight, Lara head-butted the mercenary, sending him into a painful unconsciousness.

She gingerly freed herself from her now-dented black helmet and shook her head. Tiny lights flashed before her eyes. "That… was intense," said Zip, breathless with amazement.

"I try," said Lara, blinking and turning to find her pistols. She refreshed their ammunition and placed them into their holsters. She walked over to a dead gun-for-hire and picked up his hunting shotgun and placed it in the strap of her backpack. Lara cracked her knuckles and walked up to the now unguarded entrance into the mountain.

It was a simple, yet crude, metal gate, placed here as a final defense against intruders. Lara attached her magnetic grapple to the gate, took a few steps back, and tugged lightly. The gate fell with a diminutive crash, revealing a dark and pitiless gap. Lara strode forward, her footfalls echoing throughout the valley, only to be loudly amplified in the cavernous dark.

Though made by less-skilled hands than those she had seen in her past exploits, the chamber she had entered was none-the-less magnificent. Native American pictographs told stories never to be completed due to the dubious hands of time, tales Lara nor Alister had any knowledge of. On either side of the walls were narrow rivers that led into waterfalls beneath an abyss she stood above on centuries-old rock. Stairs and ladders wasted away into nothingness, one stairwell to her left the most impressive. She took her binoculars and gazed upward and saw an arrow, marked with neon-tape, pointing into a passage that Lara thought for certain was an easier access to the dais. Yet there was no feasible way to gain access from her altitude. "The longer way then," she said, replacing her binoculars. "Amanda's probably close to accessing Avalon by now. I'd better hurry."

She jogged forward, advancing into heavier darkness. Soon, the whole passage was pitch black, forcing Lara to use her light mounted to her backpack and to go at a slower pace. She turned a corner to another empty passage. Long, thin, empty strips on either side of her gave her a clue to use caution here. "Don't speak," she said to Zip and Alister, "I need to listen here." They mutely acquiesced. She took a cautious step forward. Nothing but empty whispers of the wind outside and the low gurgle of the narrow streams. Another step. A terrible round metal blade jettisoned from the right wall and stretched out to greet her. Lara hastily leaned backwards, barely missing the rusty knife. She looked back and watched it rotate and turn back to her. She bent forward, but was flung to the floor as the handle of her shotgun was quickly amputated. The blade recessed, and there was silence once more.

Lara's palms unleashed a cold sweat, and she jumped as she heard the barrel of the shotgun slide out from her backpack. Her heart beat so fast it felt like it could detach from her chest and sprint out of the chamber on its own. She took a shuddering breath and collected herself. _Just relax_, she told herself. _You've done things like this before. Worse in fact. Just relax. _Lara stood and began once more forward.

Darkness enveloped her as the low whine of her light died out. "That's it! I'm getting you a new one," yelled Zip, immediately followed by Alister's shushing. Lara's legs refused to take a further step. Her breathing began to take quiet, deep breaths as she waited for the tiny battery to recharge. The sound of another metal blade began to whisper, and then become a roar. She rapidly tapped the switch on her light to turn on, and fell back, narrowly escaping the sudden approach of the blade as it swooshed out in the dark. She rotated onto her stomach and quickly crept forward, stopping only when she reached harsh, cool stone stairs.

Lara heaved deep breaths as she recovered. She had not been prone to such feelings of fright in many years. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the stress of Eddington's imprisonment, the aura of the dais, or her own humanity, she didn't know. She stood, resolute, and pressed on, up the ancient stairs, and into a space where light cast down from above and illuminated the chamber.

"Treacherous place," said Alister.

"You have no idea," said Lara, walking down the illuminated chamber. The soft rush of the rivers calmed her as she followed their path. They crossed a large gap, where at the bottom were rows of razor-sharp pikes, some with age old remains of those who had fallen in. Reaching out were rows of totem-poles that ascended in a dizzying pattern towards the higher side that her path continued upon. She grabbed a totem pole and climbed up. Once she felt she had enough distance between herself and the ground, she leapt back and onto the second totem pole. She scaled upwards toward the flat top and balanced on it. Before she could fall, she jumped and grabbed a copper pole jetting out from the wall. She rotated it, spinning until she felt she had gathered enough momentum to grab another totem pole. Yet as soon as she reached it, it began to crumble. Quickly she scaled it and stood on its head, leaping off the crumbling remains and landing delicately on the top of another. She breathed a sigh of relief and then jumped onto the smooth stone floor that let her continue.

She pressed on, crossing in-and-out of light and pitch blackness, until she came to a massive chamber that had been seemingly crafted from the mountain. Water dripped down monotonously from the sharp and uneven rocks above and alongside her. Melting out from the stone was a massive carving of a man-like creation, his eyes and mouth open and vacant. His head was larger than his body, for his torso appeared petite, save for a great metal disk in his hands. Directly beneath his torso was a sealed door that the rivers ran from under. In the middle of the room was a strange structure with two similar metal disks facing toward the door. The room was illuminated by three shafts of light that intersected at the strange structure, two on either side, one in front. "Too easy," said Lara.

"But you know those are the most dangerous ones," said Zip.

"We were lucky we made it here now. Any other time and the sun would've passed over us and made it impossible to proceed," said Alister. Lara grabbed the right metal disc on the structure and rotated it, catching the light and shining its reflection into the statue's right eye. She moved to the left disc and did the same to the other eye. She threw her grapple to the third disc above her, but, despite the combination of her might and the grapple's, the disc would not yield. "The old fashioned way, then," she said, reeling in her tool. She began to scale the side of the doorway, carefully making her way to the disc. "Hurry," said Alister, "we don't know how sensitive this machine is. The sun might have moved from its position by the time you're finished."

"I understand, Alister. But please just relax," she said. She placed her feet in the long strip beneath the disc and grabbed the right hand of the statue. It moved with surprising ease to the right. The left hand was pulled farther in, clinging more tightly to the disc. This hand proved slightly more difficult to move, yet it yielded to Lara's persistence. She grabbed the disc and wobbled on her perch. There was a sudden whistling as a bed of spikes fell from the dark recesses above her. She toppled to the ground as the ancient ropes holding the bed were suddenly cut short from reaching the ground. In a cloud of dust, however, two other beds of spikes suddenly flung up from the floor and tried to sandwich Lara. However, by the grace of time, the left bed paused mid-swipe towards her. She tossed the disc towards the structure and quickly rolled away from the spikes. The bed of spikes from above suddenly broke free of its ropes as the left trap continued its movement, creating a terrible compendium of nails and spikes that could only have been found in nightmares.

Lara quickly attached the disc to the front of the structure and positioned the sun's reflection into the statue's mouth. There was a low rumbling as the old door rose into its recess in the statue. "What'd I tell you?" said Zip, knowledgably, forcing a smile onto Lara's face. She jogged out of the chamber and continued down the hallway.

Vines slowly began to appear out of the walls as she progressed and dipped thirstily into the rivers. "How is that possible?" said Alister.

"I have absolutely no idea. You saw the land here. Nothing could grow," said Lara.

"Or nothing has grown _yet_," said Zip.

"Don't be an idiot," said Alister; however, Lara found this thought intriguing. Maybe this region's time had not yet come to thrive in the outside world. Or its time had come-and-gone, forcing life to crawl into the rock until it would one day have its moment again, and become even more powerful against that which had opposed it.

The river's lull began to be covered by the sounds of what Lara could only assume to be another trap. Sure enough, as she turned the corner into the next hallway, she saw long, sharp spears jettison from the ceiling and nearly touch the floor. The floor was mostly smooth and dusty, with the exception of rocky fissure where a stone had fallen from above, encircling a harsh hole with light. A broken spear laid inside it, its tip crushed into a sparkling dust. Lara watched the spears as they flew down from their homes, but to her despair noticed no pattern. "It's completely random," she said, with sadness.

"You'll have to make a run for it," said Zip.

"Yes, I know," she said. Her voice was small and feeble. Every trap had a weakness, but there appeared none here. She would have to rely on luck and skill here. Much like the trap, she ran at a random moment, giving herself no time to pause. She sprinted straight ahead, hoping she would not be struck. A spear came down directly in front of her, surprising Lara and sending her careening into the shallow pit.

The world was spinning around her when Lara awoke. She had been knocked unconscious by the fall. "How long was I out?" she said.

"You were knocked out?" said Zip.

"Never mind," said Lara. The spears continued to plummet to the ground, stabbing ever so close to her. Once more giving herself no time to think twice, she stood and took off at a dead sprint towards the other side. She dove out of the trap and rolled onto the stairwell ahead of her.

"Magnificent," said Alister.

"You're both so easily amused," said Lara, standing and speaking calmly, though her hands trembled with adrenaline and fear. She quickly jogged up the steps, breathing in stress and tension and exhaling calmness. She felt pushed for time, worried that at any moment some great cataclysm would befall her, signaling that she had failed, that Eddington was dead, and that Evert had made it into Avalon before her.

The stairs stopped at a waterfall. The water poured out from a four-foot wide hole and into a deep gap, while the rivers came from two smaller holes on either side that collected perfectly in the drains Lara had been following. She passed around the waterfall, a refreshing mist spraying at her hot and grimy face and came to a solid wall, that curved down on either side of a stairwell down into a cavernous courtyard. Several crates of varying sizes were scattered around. Two mercenaries stood by one, admiring, to Lara's shock, a Russian-made rocket launcher. Zip whistled low into Lara's headset. "I gotta get me one of those." Lara took out her pistols and crept quietly down the stairs to her left. She heard them chattering to each other, talking about how incredible it was, and how the guns-for-hire were able to afford something of such quality. With careful precision, Lara knocked them out at the same time with her pistols on the top of their bare heads.

"Nicely done, Lara," said Alister.

"You taking that with you?" asked Zip like a child at a toy store. Lara paused to consider as she placed her pistols back in their holsters.

"Why not?" she said, lifting the rocket launcher.

"Awesome," said Zip with glee.

The courtyard led to a vast opening with stalactites dipping low to the ground like strips of saliva in the mouth of a man. Like the courtyard there was a similar stairwell that led to a cliff, where Evert's employed wandered around like ants, plugging in electronics and standing guard over the dais. Lara could see Eddington kneeling over a red generator that she knew to be the prototype he had been working on. His left foot was heavily bandaged, and Lara could spot three bloody spots where toes should be. Amanda surveyed them all, her tattooed arms crossed. The surrounding cliff was pockmarked with holes and craters where the indigenous people slept at one time. On her far left, marked with a neon arrow, was the exit. "How are you going to get Henry out of there?" asked Alister.

"With difficulty," said Lara. She slowly stood, the rocket launcher mounted on her shoulder, and aimed at the dais. Once she was sure no one was watching her and she had the dais in her sights, she shouted, "HENRY! RUN!" The denizens of the canyon looked up, en masse, at Lara. Eddington hobbled as quickly as he could out of the way, and in a split second, Lara fired the rocket.

Many things then happened at once.

Mercenaries fired at Lara as she ducked beneath the stone. Evert ran for cover as the rocket struck the dais, creating a massive ball of fire and dust, which immediately began to grow a bright and terrible green. Lightning and thunder pierced the electric blue sky as the earth began to shake. A dense green ball of electricity formed, spitting out fiery bolts that devastated the earth. Lara sprinted down the rapidly crumbling steps, avoiding gunfire that she traded with her own. Dust rose from the ground while boulders fell around her. The air was as hot as fire, which grew hotter as she got nearer to the green ball. She narrowly avoided a bolt of lightning that nevertheless singed her hair. Suddenly, she saw Eddington, face-down, on the ground. She rolled him over and sat him up. "Are you alright?" she asked, worried. Blood was streaming from an old cut on his forehead, yet he was still capable of smiling and flashing that golden glow in his eye.

"Lord, Lara," he choked, "when you make an entrance…." Lara laughed with relief as she replaced her pistols and pulled him up, supporting him on her shoulder.

"We're getting out of here," she said as the earth groaned with pain. The green orb was beginning to slowly diminish, but its color grew into a darker shade. They hobbled toward the exit, lightning flashing towards them constantly. Eddington let out a groan as he fell to the ground amidst the chaos. Lara knelt in front of him.

"Come on Henry, we have to get up," she said.

"Lara--" he said, but was cut off as a bullet pierced his head to shreds, spraying Lara's face and blouse with his blood. Zip and Alister cursed and screamed frantically as Lara was quite still, her eyes wide with shock. Her fingers closed in tightly to Eddington's shoulders as viscera and brain dripped down her face and his body. Briefly, she saw the glint of metal across from her and high up the cliff. The cold, empty face of the sniper was peering down as he absent-mindedly reloaded his rifle. Her fingers let go of Eddington's body as she turned and sprinted towards the exit, her mind blank and registering nothing.


	8. 2'4

_Chapter Four_

_Exodus_

_6:54 P.M._

_Los Alamos, New Mexico_

BANG!

Lara blinked, her hands at the wheel of a pickup, navigating down the dry riverbed. Zip and Alister were screaming into her ear to respond, and the loud, unbarred roar of an SUV behind surrounded her. She glanced at her rearview mirror, and watched as a mercenary, having destroyed the back window of Lara's truck, aimed for her next. Lara weaved out of a barrage of the mercenary's shotgun pellets. She had no memory of her sprinting down the barren passage to the broken stairwell as the green ball imploded upon itself, sending debris and heat into every corner of the mountain. Lara could not remember releasing the hidden rope ladder and climbing down, and no remembrance of hotwiring the truck and skating away, down into the riverbed beneath the broken bridge.

There was another tremendous bang as the mercenary shot off her left mirror. "Shut up!" she ordered Zip and Alister. She made a sudden left turn down a fork in the riverbed, but to no avail. Quickly returning to her instincts, she pulled out her pistol and fired blindly behind her. There was a terrible scream as the mercenary, pierced by a stray bullet, tumbled from the SUV and into the coarse rock.

As the two trucks pulled out of the fork, a second pickup truck appeared into view, pulling out directly in front of Lara. A gun-for-hire sat in the flatbed, holding an assault rifle in his hands. Lara ducked as he peppered her windshield with lead, crystallizing it and creating millions of tiny men with rifles. She fired her pistol, destroying the windshield and inadvertently injuring herself as the tiny shards blew past her. The man returned fire, but the bullets missed Lara by inches. Quickly she reloaded and, with one well-placed shot, killed the man in a moment. Then, she turned and shot a second mercenary that had appeared from the inside of the SUV. She trained her eye on the driver and fired. For a moment she thought she missed, until the black truck began to weave dangerously and tipped over onto its side.

A terrible pain shot through Lara's right shoulder, forcing her to drop her pistol to the floor. A second gun-for-hire had taken over for his fallen comrade in the pickup truck, and he had fired a bullet into Lara. She jerked the wheel, nearly tipping over in the process. She drove into a small tunnel-like cave, scratching the top of truck. She slowed to a stop and pressed her hand to her shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. Thankfully it was a flesh-wound, and did not appear serious. "If you follow this path and don't make anymore turns, you can make it to a utility road that leads to the highway," said Zip.

"Thanks," Lara groaned. Suddenly the cave echoed a monstrous roar as the second pickup truck followed her inside. She slammed on the accelerator and screamed forward, the smell of burning rubber filling her nostrils. In seconds she escaped through the other end of the tunnel and burst into daylight. She leaned against her door as she rapidly spun the wheel. The second car followed her close behind. She weaved in and out of its way, trying to stop it from getting next to her. A barrage of gunfire forced her to the left as the second car approached her so closely there was only a few feet difference.

The shooter leapt from his flatbed and onto Lara's. Lara slammed her pickup into the other, trying to shake off the unwanted passenger. His rifle flew out of his hand, but he still remained. She switched hands on the steering wheel, her right arm barely grasping it, and tried to grab her second pistol. The hard leather sole of the gunman rammed her hard in the back of the head, knocking her forehead into the steering wheel and activating the loud blare of the horn. He slid into the passenger side and jerked the wheel from Lara's hand. She slammed her elbow deep into the joint of his arm, knocking the wheel from his hand. With her injured arm she slammed an almighty fist into the intruder's face, knocking him into the side door and shattering the window. He spat out a large collection of blood and kicked Lara in her injured shoulder, eliciting a sharp howl of pain. Her mind grew blank again, all other senses completely dulled in reaction to the feeling of white-hot blades digging deep into her shoulder. She barely noticed him grab the wheel from her, yet her instinct took over once more. She reached down and pulled out her pistol and took a potshot at the intruder, further covering Lara with gore. She dropped her pistol to the floor and pushed him away with her right arm.

His arm slumped to the floor, and Lara saw her other pistol near his hand, along with a silver suitcase. She reached down, but the suitcase's handle and her pistol were too far out of reach. She looked back up and saw the other pickup truck slam into her and drive alongside. The driver glared at her, the steering wheel in his left hand, and his right hand fumbling for something beside him. He once more slammed into her, nearly knocking Lara into a ravine wall. The suitcase's handle drew closer to her, and so she reached down and pulled it up beside her. She unlatched the suitcase and saw grenades, stolen by the guns-for-hire from the mercenaries. Lara took one in her hand and looked up. The driver now had a small black pistol in his hand. Lara tore the pin from the grenade and threw it into the other pickup, then slammed on the brakes. The second pickup continued forward as the driver fumbled for the grenade. Lara threw the gear into reverse and quickly backed up, looking behind her for any sign of shelter. There was a tremendous blast of heat and fire that lifted her pickup briefly onto its back two wheels, then rotated it slightly to the right.

The engine died. Lara leaned against her seat and breathed a deep sight of relief and fatigue. The second pickup's remains burned brightly against the setting sun, its flames licking upward, spitting out hazy heat that dissipated into the air. "You alright, Lara?" asked Zip.

"Just… make sure I have medical supplies in the jet," she said.

"You got it. I've got it booked to take you home immediately."

"Thank you. Now please, just give me a bit of quiet time," said Lara.

"Sure."

Lara placed her hand to her forehead, but quickly tore it away when she felt the unpleasant mixture of dry and quickly congealing blood. Her eyes drifted to the dead passenger beside her. He laid awkwardly positioned, his right arm drifting to the floor, while the rest of his body was slouched by the gearshift. Lara stumbled from the car and walked to the other side. She opened the door and grabbed the body with her left hand. What was left of his head leaned down towards her wrist. She pulled him out of the car slowly, letting him fall unceremoniously to the ground.

She returned to the driver side. The pain in her shoulder was beginning to ebb away, allowing Lara to restart the motor. The engine whined to life after a few attempts. She turned the car back to the direction of the highway, and drove down the riverbed, careful to avoid the rapidly burning remains of the other car.


End file.
